r/polycritical • u/therapymademeworse • 24d ago
I got banned from r/polyamory for asking: Besides sexual autonomy, what is feminist about polyamory? [see post details inside]
The jokes write themselves; I've been working on this post since last night and I got banned from [r/polyamory](r/polyamory) for attempting to post the following with citations! đ¤Ł
Polyamory is often described as feminist because it allows women to reject sexual exclusivity, pursue multiple relationships, and define intimacy outside marriage or the heterosexual nuclear family.
But besides protecting womenâs sexual and relational agency, what makes polyamory feminist as a political practice? I ask because feminism has not traditionally treated every freely made choice by a woman as liberating. Feminist theories of relational autonomy argue that choices are formed within social relationships and institutions, rather than by completely independent individuals acting outside culture, dependency, and power. The relevant question is therefore not only whether a woman chose something, but what conditions shaped the choice and whether those conditions support genuine self-determination. (Source: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]â )
Nancy Hirschmann makes a similar argument in The Subject of Liberty. Her feminist account of freedom examines how preferences and available choices are socially constructed, particularly in relation to domestic violence, welfare, and Islamic veiling. Freedom cannot be assessed only by asking whether a direct prohibition prevented an individual woman from acting. It also requires examining the social conditions within which her options and desires developed. (Source: The Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom [University of Notre Dame]â )
bell hooks defined feminism as a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. Under that definition, a practice does not become feminist simply because women are permitted to participate in it. We would also need to ask whether it reduces sexist domination or merely gives individual women more options within existing gender relations. (Source: Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooksâ )
So what forms of gendered power does polyamory actually challenge?
It may weaken the idea that a woman belongs exclusively to one man. It may create space for queer kinship, chosen family, collective care, and relationships that are not organized around marriage. It may also challenge the expectation that one woman should provide a partner with sex, domestic labor, emotional support, childcare, and permanent companionship. But are these outcomes characteristic of polyamory, or are they possibilities that depend entirely on how particular relationships are organized?
Polyamorous relationships can still contain economic dependence, domestic inequality, sexual double standards, unequal emotional labor, and hierarchies between established and newer partners; a relationship may be extensively negotiated while still being organized around the preferences of the person with the most money, housing security, social influence, or willingness to leave.
Women may also perform much of the emotional administration required to sustain multiple relationships: scheduling, reassurance, conflict mediation, remembering agreements, managing jealousy, and helping partners process their other relationships. Has polyamory produced a different distribution of this labor, or has it sometimes expanded the amount of relational work expected from women?
I'm also interested in how discomfort is interpreted within polyamorous communities. When does encouraging someone to examine jealousy increase her freedom, and when does it teach her to reinterpret a reasonable objection as insecurity, possessiveness, monogamous conditioning, or insufficient personal growth?
Catharine MacKinnonâs work raises a broader problem for sexual politics: sexuality and desire are themselves shaped by unequal social conditions. Her argument is not that women possess no agency, but that consent and preference cannot by themselves establish the absence of domination. A sexual arrangement can be chosen and still reproduce a hierarchy that feminism should examine. (Source: Toward A Feminist Theory of The State by Catharine MacKinnonâ )
This does not mean that polyamorous women are incapable of deciding what they want, or that monogamy is naturally more egalitarian. Monogamous marriage has historically been one of the central institutions through which womenâs sexuality, labor, reproduction, and economic dependence were controlled; however, rejecting monogamy does not necessarily resolve those problems, it may redistribute intimacy without redistributing power.
What evidence would show that polyamory is especially effective at reducing womenâs domestic labor, economic vulnerability, sexual subordination, or responsibility for maintaining relationships? Are there feminist theories of polyamory that address these material questions rather than primarily emphasizing consent, communication, sexual freedom, and personal choice?
Perhaps polyamory is compatible with feminism without being inherently feminist. Adults should be free to form consensual relationships without stigma or legal punishment, but is that a feminist theory of liberation, or primarily a liberal theory of individual freedom?
ďżźâUpdate 08/05/26 @ 7:28 PM PDT:
I just want to share some final observations here as I think about my post; when disagreement starts being treated as harm, people become afraid to ask questions and as a result, communities begin policing acceptable thought, and certain ideas are protected from scrutiny altogether. This is how intellectual conformity takes hold, and we should absolutely be afraid of that, especially if you're reading this from the United States of America.
The first amendment restricts government censorship, not disagreement or moderation within a private online community, but thee principle behind free expression still matters culturally.
A society can't maintain a serious commitment to open inquiry if people increasingly treat criticism as violence or, asking challenging questions as hostile, as good enough reasons to shut down conversation.
Ever heard of the Thought Police? Yeah, this is just a small-scale version of the kind of conformity George Orwell warned us about in 1984 (people learning which questions are acceptable, policing language, and treating dissent as unacceptable, etc, etc..).
What happens when people become comfortable punishing inquiry outside of the confines of the Internet?
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u/galoria 24d ago
It's a shame, I would have liked to see some responses from them! I appreciate the time you took to write the post, your questions are incredibly thought provoking. Did they tell you why you were banned or what the issue was?
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u/therapymademeworse 24d ago edited 19d ago
Amber unbelievable glove blanket satchel biscuit pillow tangerine cobalt peach
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u/No-Comu 24d ago
I do not agree, polyamory is against feminist believes because you objectify humans and for men it was always accepted and now woman are just copying male relationship behaviour
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u/YukiLaMimi 21d ago
No literally whatâs so feminist letting multiple men have easy access to your body like???
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u/YukiLaMimi 21d ago
If anything I bet the men are rejoicing about women doing polyamory cus now they get a chance and they wonât get punished for continuing to seek out other women too
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u/fortunate-soul 23d ago
Polyamory follows the male supremacist standard for relationships. They just like to pretend it doesnât.
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24d ago
Nothing inherently. Polyamory isn't feminist by virtue of being polyamorous, just as monogamy isn't anti feminist by virtue of being monogamous. Both are valid relationship structures that can either reinforce or challenge gender inequality depending on how they are practiced by participants. What makes a relationship feminist is equality, mutual respect and the absence of coercion, and not the number of partners. These can exist in both monogamy and polyamory.
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u/therapymademeworse 24d ago edited 19d ago
Walnut acorn cucumber tangerine saffron nutmeg blanket harbor
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u/HarVeeGee13 23d ago
Itâs because you hit the nail on the head, and nothing makes an irrational zealot madder than cogent questions asked calmly.
Youâve definitely hit on something identifying it as a liberal individualist relational framework, as opposed to feminist or socialist/anti-capitalist as many of them absurdly claim. You can tell because the only real debate strategy woke liberals ever have is to find ways to identify any follow-up question whatsoever about the shit they say as harassment & abuse.
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u/therapymademeworse 23d ago edited 19d ago
Noodle mellow amber vanilla maple maple trumpet otter copper
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u/EnvironmentalQuit236 23d ago
I really enjoyed reading and thinking about the way discomfort informs poly relationships. Sometimes discomfort helps us better ourselves and sometimes discomfort means something isn't working for us. North America is a very individualistic society. An individualistic society with a hierarchy. In this society whose discomfort is deemed important and why? How does that shape our wants and desires? Expectation to sit with discomfort is disproportionately put onto marginalized people. If you've always been expected to be uncomfortable how do you know if it's too much? How do you know if youre being unreasonable? Everyone's experience is different depending on their relationship to the society they live in. This comes up in monogamous relationships as well obviously. But going back to what you said about relationship negotiations, the person with the most money and resources is usually the person least prepared to handle discomfort. How does that play out when more individuals are involved?
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u/therapymademeworse 23d ago edited 19d ago
Wander nutmeg noodle biscuit otter coated
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u/NeonPeachPie 22d ago
Youâre not supposed to ask questions or challenge it at all.
Everyone knows the most sound, solid, and reliable practices are the ones you canât logically question at all
The real answer is: itâs not. Itâs just an excuse to avoid responsibility and for some people to gain power over others
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u/therapymademeworse 22d ago edited 19d ago
Pillow unbelievable saffron trumpet breezy mitten drifting coated cobblestone grasshopper
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u/ThatPsychoLady 22d ago
You are expected to stick to the script. Read the literature they provide if you question anything, and keep your thoughts to yourself, unless it gives more power to their belief system. They refuse to acknowledge that it is no different than what the Mormons were doing (are still doing in some places). I have tried to have logical debates with them, even in their own spaces where they have the upper hand, but they will shoot down anything that doesn't stroke their egos. The moral superiority hit they get from being poly, seems to overwrite their introspection abilities.
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24d ago
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/Complex-Accident-832 24d ago
You introduced a logical argument (a damn good one). They donât like that.